As I predicted, I have woken up to England having made a heap of runs - on the same pitch where the Aussies were demolished. Root's 124 and (name escapes me) 74 shows that it can be done.

I haven't read any of the written commentaries yet, but the debacle did lead the 7 o'clock news this morning. I wouldn't like to be in Michael Clarke's shoes today!

The South African man who does the stats mentioned a number of "first evers/worst evers/best evers" last night, which I can't remember, except for Broad's bowling (8/15) being the best ever in test cricket. Is that correct?

[T]hose children were left alone and because of that fact one of them disappeared. (Fatima de Oliveira Esteves)

Correction. The key reasonÂ Australia were bowled out for such a paltry score was the performance of Stuart Broad, who stepped up to his role of lead English paceman with incredible effect. He finished with 8-15 in front of his home crowd. Only twice in Test history has anyone taken eight wickets for fewer runs. (Sydney Morning Herald)

However, Australia's dismissal in 18.3 overs was the shortest first innings of a Test in history.

What a humiliating stat for the once-proud Australian cricket team to bear!

Talk about hubris leading to nemesis ........

[T]hose children were left alone and because of that fact one of them disappeared. (Fatima de Oliveira Esteves)

The problem is that they haven't had the opportunity to adapt their game to playing on seaming pitches because they lacked the preparation.

I pointed out before and I think it's worth repeating that in the 1972 Ashes series, Australia played 10 3-day matches against the counties before the first Test.

It so happens that England won that series, but 10 3-day matches were scheduled for the Australians to play before the first test.

Wisden recalls:

The weather was so bad in May and June that few matches ran their proper course and the one against Yorkshire at Bradford was abandoned without a ball bowled although both sides engaged in some unsatisfactory limited over contest considering the conditions. Consequently the batsmen took a long time to find any settled form and the real power behind the 5-man speed attack [bowling] was yet to be revealed.

It's indicative. It's not that Australia can't play in seaming conditions. It's that they lack the experience of those conditions.

Admittedly a leveller is that England players contracted to play for the national side (these days) neither play regularly in those conditions because they don't play county cricket. Still, they are conditions English players are more used to, having risen through the ranks of the county game.